


in all that crowd

by brahe



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Communication, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s09e01 The Magician's Apprentice, Episode: s09e03 Under the Lake, Episode: s09e07 The Zygon Invasion, Episode: s09e08 The Zygon Inversion, F/M, Post Regeneration, Regeneration, Season 9, Season 9 Spoilers, Some angst, episode coda, is key, mentions of future character death, references to danny pink, that hug tho, the arena bit in the premiere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-11-01 06:27:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10916199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brahe/pseuds/brahe
Summary: episode codas for season nine, featuring mostly angst and hurt/comfort





	1. just not tonight

**Author's Note:**

> so my roommate (finally) started watching season 9, and i was going back through my fics for it, and decided to consolidate my series "in all that crowd" into a chapter fic instead, so this is that. it's a series of episode codas for season 9 mostly, featuring angst and hurt/comfort and all that jazz

He finds her in her room. She's lying on the bed, and there's some sort of music coming from somewhere. Her eyes are closed, and her cheeks are shining. She's clutching a pillow to her chest, crying quietly.

He hovers by the door for a long moment, debating about whether or not to approach her. Eventually he gives in, knocking on the open door. Her head jerks up and she blinks at him, eyes red. It tears at his hearts, knowing that he's let her down, caused her this much pain. She sits up and draws her knees under her chin, and he takes it as an invitation to enter the room.

Her eyes stay on him as he walks towards the bed. He sits on the edge of the bed because it's less awkward than standing there watching her. She sniffles and he sighs.

"I'm sorry," he says softly. He's apologizing for a thousand things at once, none of which he can fix. She shakes her head and reaches a hand out to him but lets it fall before it touches him.

"Don't be," she tells him, and her voice is rough. "It's not - I just..." she sighs. "I'll be alright. Just not tonight."

He looks at her like he doesn't believe her, and she takes the silence to examine his new face. He looks almost angry, and a part of her is already itching to see what it takes to make him smile. The change isn't bad; no, she would never call it that. Shocking is a better word. Perhaps he thought she'd be more prepared for this, but it hit her like a train.

His gaze drops to his palms, laying in his lap. He still looks hurt, and she understands. She would be too, if someone ran out of the room and cried over her for hours. She wants to comfort him, but she doesn't know how. Not yet, anyway.

"If there's...anything you need..." he offers, and her lips curve into a small, brief smile. This new body doesn't strike her as hesitant or unconfident, but his actions now are those of the Doctor, not specific to any body of his.

"Thanks," she nods. He looks up at her, a sort of pained smile appearing on his face but falling quickly.

"It's not...you," she says. He needs to know she isn't upset because she hates him.

He opens his mouth to respond, but says nothing and instead nods once. They need to work on their communication, desperately, but that's nothing new. He's been through this change before, not that long ago in terms of his life, but he was unconscious for the majority of the adjustment process. Facing it head on is daunting and emotionally draining for all parties.

They sit side by side in silence for a little while longer. He isn't sure if he should stay or if he should leave, but he feels that his presence is probably not what she needs right now. So he reaches out a hand and wraps his fingers around hers, squeezing gently before pulling his hand back and pushing himself off the bed.

He turns to her to say something, but he's already said all he can right now, and so he leaves with a last glance on her form, torn over the trouble he's caused her. Her words ring in his head, though, and remind him that Clara, his impossible girl, is impossibly resilient, and reassure him that come morning things will be better. Far from perfect, but better. All he's ever been able to hope for is better.

 


	2. if you love me, don't let go

He watches her as she walks into the arena, looking up and around at the audience in awe, giving them a small wave. The corners of his mouth quirk into a sort of half smile. The smallest things always amazed her.

 

She comes to stand in front of him. Her gaze is searching, looking for reasons and answers he doesn't have the words to articulate. He'd half expected her to start yelling about the last time he left her, but she stands silent.

So he does the only thing he can think of and surges forward, wrapping his arms tightly around her. She stiffens a little, in surprise mostly, before she relaxes and wraps her arms around him in return. He hides his face in the crook of her neck and breaths in, losing himself, if just for a moment, in the way she feels, tucked into his embrace like this. It's in the way she's holding him back that he knows she knows, knows that everything he told her before he left was a lie, but he also knows that she forgives him. It breaks him, in a good sort of way that makes him want to tell her the whole story, the _real_ story, and isn't that something new?

But then her next breath is a little more than shaky and he breaks a little more, only this time it's his resolve to ignore what's coming that breaks. She knows what he suspects will happen, otherwise she wouldn't be here, like this, right now. He feels guilty for leaving her for so long only to have her meet him again like this. It makes him think about why all this is happening and it's more painful than he'd care to admit. He almost wishes she hadn't come, because it would have been easier to say goodbye that way. But he can't deny that she's here. He's holding her in a hug that means so much more than that and he wants this moment to never end, never wants her to let him go, because if she does than he can't guarantee what will happen next. Like this, he can hold onto her, keep her safe, keep the future at bay.


	3. one face

She watches him from the rampart, smiling despite herself because it's been a while since she's seen him. In those moment he's the most reckless she's seen, and it calls to mind an image of a face with floppy hair and a bow tie, and for a second she's guilty for thinking it, for seeing them as two separate people, for comparing them. But she sees the first face she met right now in the actions of this one, and she realizes, again, that they're all the same, underneath. He's the same, always.

When he hears them and tilts his shades down to look at her and the time lady beside her, she smiles. It's brighter than she's smiled in a long time, and it feels nice. She makes her way down the stairs to just outside the arena and watches him. She's amused, sure, but she's concerned, because he’s never like this without a reason.

He calls her out and she walks forward, hesitating first. She stands before him, looking up into the face that seems so much more representative of who he's become. They stand, for a heartbeat, and then he surges forward and wraps his arms around her and her breath stutters at first because this, this is new. His arms are tight around her, fierce and a little more than desperate. She hugs him back, remembering the lies they left each other with, wishing she'd held on to him a little stronger then. She tries to make up for it now.

He pulls away and holds onto her arms. She wants to say a thousand things, but all of her thoughts, angry and sad and regretful and apologetic, come to a screeching halt when she can just barely hear him whisper her name. She remembers, then, why she's here, why she's had to find him out.

"You could see me?" she asks, surprised.

"Oh Clara," he starts, "when don't I see you?"

She almost cries then, because it's been so long, and there were such great lies left between them, but he's still here and she still matters, to him.

"One face, in all that crowd?" she says, trying for a smile but probably failing. His face softens.

"There was a crowd, too?" He looks surprised, and she wonders if it really is like that for him.

He's put so much emotion into two sentences, and she remembers with a start that he's supposedly dying. She wishes desperately that they were somewhere else, anywhere else, because she knows she'll never get the truth out of him here. Instead, she settles for hugging him again, hiding her face against his jacket and hoping he can't feel the shaking breaths she's taking. His hands come to her back, steady and sure, and she knows he can tell. He always can.

She needs him to know how important he is to her, but she can't find the words to say it, so she squeezes him a little tighter and when she pulls away she tries to discretely wipe her eyes with the back of her hand. He sees her do it - how could he not, he's standing so close - and he reaches out to grab onto her hand. He can't say the words "I'm sorry," not here, and so he settles for this, and he can see it in her eyes that she knows what it means.


	4. native

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really liked his line about going native bc yeah it was about being invested in the saving and being the hero and jumping into danger like he does, but i think it was also about how, watching her, he knew she was throwing herself so much into it to escape her loss, and who knows that better than he does?

He knows that he needs to - _they_ need to - talk about this when Clara brings up "danger" and "monsters" for the third time since they've landed. For all Clara thinks he doesn't understand emotions, he has an incredibly good grasp of them. _A millennia of practice_ , he thinks and follows after Clara with a sigh.

  
He decides the best time is when they're in the TARDIS, stuck in an underwater nuclear reactor with ghosts no one understands. Clara shrugs off her coat and bounds over to the doors, ready to run back out into the fray.

  
"Don't go all native," he says, standing at the control panel. Clara stops and turns to him.

  
"What?" she asks. He sighs. This body doesn't seem to be very good with words.

  
"There's only enough room for one danger-seeking madman here," he explains, but that isn't what he was trying to say. Not really.

  
But Clara seems to be beginning to understand. She has always been so good at reading him. "Oh. No, yeah, I know," she nods, giving him a smile. He shakes his head.

  
"I know you're...trying to forget," he starts, the emotions awkward on the outside.

  
"I'm not," she says, almost a little too quickly. He looks at her for a long moment, and she shifts under his gaze. He knows this, knows what she's feeling right now no one better.

  
"I can see it, in your eyes," he tells her. "You might be able to hide some things from me, but you can't hide that. I know it too well."

  
Clara opens her mouth to respond, but then closes it again. She does this a few times. Any other situation and the Doctor would have made a joke about fish, but this isn't the time.

  
He watches her, watches the emotions play across her face. She seems torn between anger and sadness, and he realizes with a resigned sigh which she will give into. Clara raises her hand and he braces himself for a hard slap to the face, but it never comes.

  
He opens his eyes slowly, one at a time, squinting at his human. Her eyes are shinning and he realizes how deep this goes.

  
"Clara..." he says, not finding the words he wants to say. She shakes her head, tilting her face up to the roof of the TARDIS and taking in a deep breath.

  
"No, it's..." she trails off before she finishes, because she and the Doctor both know whatever word she uses won't be correct. Won't be enough. 

  
"I know," he says, and this time she doesn't glare at him. She can't, because she knows he does. Nobody knows it like he does.

 

"I didn't really love him," she admits after some time. Her voice is high and it cracks over the words. "Not like that. Not really. Not him."

 

The next time she blinks her hold on her tears break. They fall off her eyelashes slowly as she lets her head fall. The motion means so much more than just that, and within a second the Doctor is moving forward, wrapping his arms around her torso and tucking her into his chest.

 

He can think of a thousand reasons why she's crying now, but he won't ask. So instead he holds her and kisses her forehead and smooths his hands over her hair, offering her whatever comfort he can. He vowed that when, or if, she ever came back, he would be different, to her. He realized after that time he left her in that cafe all the ways he treated her wrong, all the reasons why she had wanted to stay behind in the first place. And so now he does what he can, holding her until her control returns.

  
"Sorry," she mumbles when she takes a step back, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater.

  
"Don't apologize," he says, and for a moment he worries it came out too harsh. "Never for that," he adds, because he's still trying to make it up, and he needs her to know that he's always here for her, will always be.


	5. promise me

"Could have only been five minutes," Clara says, tone light in an attempt to dispel the heavy air in the room.

 

 “I’ll be the judge of time,” he says, walking around her and pulling the lever beside her. Any inkling of a lighter mood is gone. He looks up at her then, and she tries to read his expression. Anger, sadness, fear: they’re all present. It puts an immense amount of weight on her, knowing that she, and her future, is the cause of his pain. She finds herself torn between letting it go (as they always seem to do) or facing it straight on. As she looks at him, even after he glides away from her and around the console, she wonders if she’s brave enough to breach this subject.

When she replays the day in her head, she realizes she must be.

 

"Doctor," she starts, and then trails off when his gaze meets hers again. It's so intense, so full of so much, that she feels like she might be drowning. She squares her shoulders and pushes herself through. "We need to talk about...this."

He shifts, looking almost like a trapped animal for a brief moment, before she seed the resolve fall over his features too and he takes a step towards her.

"Talk about what?" he asks. He knows _what_ , but he can't say it. Can't talk about it. Never could.

"You and I both know that I will die," she says, and the words are sticky in her throat. He looks momentarily taken back by the bluntness of her words, but she finds that's often the only way to effectively communicate with him.

"Yes," he agrees, eventually. He looks like he wants to say more, but thinks better of it.

"I need to know that you will be okay," she tells him. "I need you, to promise me."

He shakes his head. "I won't make promises I can't keep."

The way he says it makes her heart clench and she feels the weight of this heavier now, pressing on her chest, against her soul. This is the first time they've confronted one another on something like this is such a long time, she can't remember when the last time was.

She looks across the console to him where he stands a few steps away. A part of her wants to rush to him, embrace him, and move past this conversation, but it’s one she knows they need to have, so she pushes on.

“Listen to me,” she says. Her voice is thicker now, emotion clouding it. “I need you to tell me that you’ll be okay.” She leans heavily against the console. “I don’t care if it’s a lie.” Her eyes fall to the console and she watches a tear splash onto the machinery.

“Oh, Clara,” she hears him whisper. There’s the soft ruffling of clothing as he takes a step towards her. He doesn’t reach her, though. “I could never lie to you,” he admits. “Not anymore.”

And she knows he’s right. After Christmas, they made an unspoken agreement that there won’t be any more lies between them. It almost destroyed them the last time, and neither wanted to go through that again.

“I don’t want to leave you,” she tells him, her voice high and breaking with her attempt to not cry. “But I don’t think I will have the choice."

“Clara, my Clara,” he says, finally reaching out and pulling her against his chest. He tucks her head under his chin and tries to ignore how quickly her tears soak through his shirt. “Why are you doing this now?"

“Because I’ve seen the way you are, when you think I’m dead, and I’ve seen the way you’ve been, in the past, when you’ve lost others.” She looks up at him, then. His eyes are suspiciously lined in red. “I need to know that this, whenever it happens, won’t be the end of you."

“I’ve gone on this long, haven’t I?” It sounds almost like he’s trying to lighten the mood, but she knows him better. This regeneration is much more serious, and it isn’t a shot at a joke. It’s a weak attempt to comfort her, but she’ll take it anyway.

He steps away from her, but keeps hold of her hand and squeezes it. He looks to her, and then to their joined hands, before leaving her in the console room. He tries not to think of it as running.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there might be more eventually, but for now that's what I got.


End file.
